Scott's World -- UPI Arts & Entertainment

HOLLYWOOD, Jan. 8 (UPI) -- Never in the history of mankind have "artists" earned such fantastic monetary rewards as in Hollywood, where a slip of a girl can pick up $20 million for a few weeks of work.

True, "artist" has many connotations and definitions covering numerous activities. In antiquity, knuckle-draggers in European caves drew animals on rocky walls with charcoal sticks. They subsequently were identified as "artists." Certainly Michelangelo, da Vinci, and hundreds of thousands of other sculptors and painters have been considered artists down through the centuries.

Musicians and composers were hailed as artists during their lifetimes, as were literary masters from Shakespeare to Patrick O'Brian. Not so with singers until the 20th century when actors somehow were celebrated as artists, principally by their agents, infrequently by critics.

The term "artist" became bastardized by promoters, con men, paid publicists, coteries, sycophants and cliques who cling to celebrities like lichen on boulders. Thus a hog-caller applying for a comic spot on "Grand Ole Opry" or "Hee Haw" would be given a contract identifying him as an "artist" in black and white for all the world to see. Now the hog-caller knows he's not an artist, nor even vaguely talented. But he is being paid to perform his "Soooo-eeeee; Pig, Pig, Pig!" at the top of his lungs. He is given a check for his pains.

Some might say it's not much of a jump from Homer Hog-caller to some hip hop or rap performers to people like Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson. Stars? Yes. But artists? Certainly, just look at their contracts which legally confer that signification on them. And if the millions of dollars they have earned is any indication. Yes again. They're artists.

But then so are movie stars and the amount of money they earn is an indication or perhaps a certification of the fact that they are the greatest artists of all time; if, of course, cash is any gauge of artistry.

On the other hand, distinguished sports figures are seldom called artists no matter how much money they make. They may be called the Sultan of Swat or Crazy Legs or the Bronx Bomber but not artists. If the amount of money, or the bottom line as it is called these days, is any indication, then the greatest artists on the planet today demonstrate their artistry on the silver screen -- as differentiated from TV.

That being the case, the most heralded "artist" in the world this minute is one Tom Cruise, whose new movie "Vanilla Sky" thus far has earned $71 million and still is going strong. It is "Vanilla Sky's" bottom line that justifies Cruise's $25 million salary, not counting his percentage of box-office receipts, which make him an even greater artist.

On the distaff side Julia Roberts commands a mere $20 million and she is worth every penny when one considers that her pictures are almost as financially successful as Cruise's.

It was not always thus, however.

In the not-so-golden Hollywood heyday, actors were chattels under contract to studios. In those Depression days the highest salaried man in the nation was Louis B. Mayer, production boss of MGM. And how much did Louis B. earn? A paltry million bucks, no more.

Third-rate TV stars earn that much a week in this era of "artists." As recently as 1939, movie artists or "actors" if you prefer made relatively little money for their worth.

Take MGM's "Gone With The Wind," perhaps the most successful movie ever made, which paid its stars, Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh, a miserly $120,000 and $25,000 respectively.

It beats the steady rate of inflation considerably when you know Cameron Diaz (who?) collects $15 million for "The Sweetest Thing," to be released in March. But then Diaz is an artist while Leigh and Gable were common, ordinary contract players. Poor souls.

Now look at Marilyn Monroe who thought she had hit the jackpot when 20th Century-Fox paid her $18,000 for "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" in 1953.

Chump change!

The picture grossed $10.2 million. Monroe had no idea she was an artist, otherwise she might have demanded $20,000 or the $100,000 the studio paid her co-star, Jane Russell. Monroe also didn't know the public did prefer blondes and that she was the major attraction. Even skinny blondes. Gwyneth Paltrow collected $5 million for "Possession," also due out in March.

In the days before actors and actresses became artists, it cost from 50 cents to a dollar for movie tickets. Kids got in for a dime. Today admission prices run from $6 or $7 to $10 and sometimes more, which accounts in part for making "artists" rich. Not all artists to be sure. Homer Hog-Caller comes to mind.